Snapchat exec Imran Khan plunks down $10.5 million in Brentwood Park

The ever-vigilant Vlad the Revealer at the Celebrity Address Aerial website rang Yolanda’s bell yet again. This time it was about a big ol’ house in prime Brentwood Park — one of the most exclusive neighborhood pockets in all of LA — that recently transferred for $10,484,000 to a mysterious buyer hidden behind an uncrackable blind trust.

Before we get to the buyer, Yolanda thought y’all might be interested in a brief history of the property. Located just a quick skip south of Sunset Boulevard, the Mediterranean mansion was constructed in 1994 and weighs in at a portly (but not mega) 8,829-square-feet of living space sprawled across a .44-acre lot.

Brentwood Park

It appears that the then-new mansion was sold in 1995 to investment banking guru Robert Beyer, who held onto the house for a full decade before selling out for about $7 million to a wealthy couple named Robert & Annie Joubran. (Our Mr. Joubran is a first cousin of billionaire Tom Gores, and Mrs. Joubran is or was an executive at Platinum Equity, Mr. Gores’ megabucks private equity firm. If you didn’t know, now you know). The Joubrans recently downsized to a cute spread high in the Topanga Canyon wilderness. But we digress.

Anyway, the house was sold again for $9,935,000 in late 2015 to hotshot music manager David Benveniste, who flipped it just a few months back at a very slight profit to the current mysterious owner.

Now, Yolanda had to pull out all the stops for this one but we finally uncovered the buyer’s identity: it is a prominent fellow named Imran Khan and his wife Catherine (“Cate”) Khan.

Imran “Snap at me” Khan

40-year-old Mr. Khan, born and raised in Bangladesh, currently toils away as the Chief Strategy Officer at Snapchat, that bizarrely popular $25 billion disappearing-message-sexting-thingy that all the young kiddies love. That app — silly as it may be — has been proven exceptionally lucrative for Mr. Khan: in a February 2017 filing, the company disclosed that he had been granted a brain-freezing $145 million worth of shares. And he’s only been at Snapchat for three years! Before Snap, Mr. Khan was an investment banker at global juggernaut Credit Suisse.

Yolanda has never downloaded the Snapchat (and we never will), we have never used the Snapchat, and we will certainly never send nude snaps on the Snapchat (not that anyone would want to see that anyway!), but we do know that everyone loves it blah blah blah.

Well, not everyone. Snapchat’s share price is in the pooper right now, although some folks are still holding out hope.

Mrs. Khan, for her part, isn’t anywhere as well-known as her hubby — who appears to be the third in command at Snap behind the two co-founders — but she is an executive at an “Amazon-owned e-commerce firm”. The couple have at least one daughter.

The house is mostly hidden from the road out front by a riotous (and some might say overgrown) array of tropical shrubs and palm trees. The double-gated driveway leads to a front-facing two-car garage and a stone staircase leading to the ornate double front doors.

Double-height ceilings and lustrous hardwood floors are clearly meant to impress guests in the entryway. Just beyond is an open living room area which French door access to the backyard.

Things are a little too beige and safe indoors for Yolanda, but it’s certainly nice enough. The formal dining room has another (too-chunky) fireplace, and the living room/lounge area has more access to the backyard. Somewhere there’s an office/library with real books and real bookshelves — imagine that — and custom wooden cabinetry.

The kitchen has upgraded appliances but still looks farrrr too 90’s for Yolanda. We’d advise the Khans to rip out all that cabinetry and (including the island with the butcher block countertop) and replacing the whole shebang with something more contemporary and exciting. At least there’s a downstairs wet bar for the maid to drown her sorrows after scrubbing the grout in between those no-good floor tiles! Yippee.

There are a total of 5 beds and 5.5 baths. All of the bedroom suites are upstairs, Yolanda believes.

The master suite looks far more contemporary than the guest bedrooms with its hardwood floors, French doors to a private balcony, and a quiet sitting area for reading a good mystery novel. The master bath has a glass-walled shower and a built-in tub.

Out back there are “elegant terraces and pergolas for entertaining”, a grassy lawn, tall hedges for complete privacy, and a child-safe gated pool area with an inset spa and a waterfall feature.

As Yolanda has reminded y’all many times, Brentwood Park is one of the poshest areas in LA and as such the Khans are now neighbors with a whole slew of high-profile peeps: Christian Bale, James Corden, and Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff, just to name a few. The Khan house is also sugar-borrowing distance from Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel’s “starter home” which he still owns but does not occupy. (Mr. Spiegel and his wife Miranda Kerr have long since moved on to much grander Brentwood digs).

Mr. Khan’s $40,000/mo. Palisades rental house

Before moving to Brentwood, Yolanda happens to know the Khans were leasing a big house in the nearby Pacific Palisades. And although we don’t know what they were paying in rent, the property was recently listed with a heart attack-causing $40k/month asking price. You’d have to be certifiable, Yolanda thinks, to pay the full cost of a new BMW 3-series each and every month in rent for what is a very nice (but nothing special!) Palisades pad.

Good thing LA has no shortage of coked-up, real estate lovin’ rich folks with money to burn. Oh, snap…

One Reply to “Snapchat exec Imran Khan plunks down $10.5 million in Brentwood Park”

For me the problem with most of Brentwood compared to some other wealthy areas of LA is that the power lines are not underground. I don’t see how you can spend $10 million for a house on a small lot and still look at power lines